Audette of Brookraven (The Eldentimber Series Book 4)

by Shari L. Tapscott

  I knock on the physician’s door, and one of the maids answers. She ushers us in, her eyes soft and downcast.

  Though I didn’t expect there to be, I was hoping for some drastic change in Barowalt’s condition. I can tell from the girl’s expression he’s the same as he was this morning.

  As Milly has been since Barowalt returned, she’s at his side. She sits in a chair, but she’s leaned over, her head resting on Barowalt’s uninjured stomach, and she’s fast asleep.

  She looks more peaceful than she has since my brother left.

  My eyes shift to my remaining knights. Hallgrave woke yesterday, and I’ve sent him to Asher’s estate to inform them what’s taken place and warn them to be especially diligent in their care. Before the knight left, I studied him for signs of the same change I went through—darkened hair, darkened eyes—but his hair was already dark brown with his eyes matching.

  I couldn’t make out a difference.

  The change in Keven, however, is disconcerting. Like me, he’s no longer blond but brunette. Earlier, he began to stir, and now his and Rogert’s cots are empty.

  “Did Lord Kevin and Sir Rogert wake?” I ask Physician Benjamin.

  The man, turns, looking weary. Grace told me yesterday that because he’s needed for little more than stomach ailments and the occasional pain relieving tea, he is most often found in the courtyard, fussing with his roses and herbs. His skin is surprisingly tan against his graying hair, but he looks pale today.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” he says. “I’ve directed them to walk in the gardens for a short while before they return to their duties.”

  Despite the dour atmosphere of the infirmary, I almost smile. Only in Ptarma would a physician prescribe a walk amongst flowers.

  Without thinking, I wrap my arms around him in a quick embrace. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

  He pats my back like the sweet grandfather he is. “I’ll continue to do everything I can for your brother.”

  Tears sting my eyes as I step back. I blink them away and nod.

  Irving stands at my shoulder, offering me quiet strength. His usual smiles are gone, replaced with soft eyes and a serious set jaw.

  I miss his lightness, his wry wit, but there’s something about him like this that makes my heart soften even more toward him.

  Not wanting to wake Milly, I only gaze on Barowalt for a few moments before I turn for the door. As we’re leaving, the king and queen enter with Kent.

  Clara’s eyes are red, and her nose looks raw from crying.

  The kingdom may have lost their future king, but she lost a son. How Aldus’s absence must weigh on her shoulders. It’s a suffocating pain I’m all too familiar with. But to lose a child? I can’t even imagine.

  As always, when Kent sees me and Irving, he grows uncomfortable. But this time, his grief and pain outweigh his embarrassment at having been caught with a mistress.

  “Though he insists he’s fine,” Edlund says to Benjamin. “I’d like you to take another look at Kent’s injuries.”

  “And I told him it’s healing as well as can be expected—” Kent begins.

  The king holds up a hand, cutting him off. Kent nods once and falls silent, probably too numb from the sudden loss of his father to argue with his uncle.

  The physician nods and motions for the prince to sit. I squeeze Clara’s hand as we turn to leave, unable to put into words how truly sorry I am for her loss.

  She clutches my hand, blinking as she nods, and then turns back to her nephew.

  Just as we’re stepping through the door, Benjamin calls, “Prince Irving, I’d like to see how your wounds are healing as well. Can you wait for a moment?”

  “I’m fine,” Irving says. “You have more important things to attend to.”

  Benjamin looks up, a wry look on his face that tells me perhaps Irving’s injuries were slightly greater than he wanted to let on.

  “It will only take a moment,” the physician assures him.

  Feeling uncomfortable, I find a place near the wall.

  I try not to look as Benjamin strips the bloodied bandage from Kent’s chest, but my eyes flutter that way in morbid curiosity. I suck in a quiet gasp when I see the yellowing flesh and the raw, oozing wound.

  Benjamin frowns. “Infection’s setting in.”

  The tension in the room is palpable.

  “What can we do?” Edlund asks.

  The physician wraps the wound, swishes his hands in a small tub filled with an herbal solution that gives me a headache, and turns back to the king. He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “I will continue to treat it with salves, but it’s not yet responding.”

  Clara grows paler than she was before.

  Kent clasps his aunt’s hand and gives her a look of mock bravado. “I’ll be fine.”

  She blinks back tears and turns to Benjamin. “We’ll track down whatever you require. Anything. Tell us what is needed to save these men.” Her voice breaks. “Ben…please…I can’t lose any more family to this.”

  Benjamin sinks to a stool. “If I knew what poison was running through their veins…but no one can tell me what this beast is. I have no way—”

  “It’s a ludrako,” I blurt out, glancing at my dwindling brother, usually so strong and yet so weak now. I turn back to the physician, knowing that there may be questions I can’t answer. Surer this time, I say again, “The beast is a ludrako.”

  “How do you know?” Edlund demands. “And what in Elden’s kingdoms is a ludrako?”

  Suddenly exhausted, I lean against the wall. “Find Grace.”

  Surprisingly, Edlund only nods, and then he, Clara, and Kent step out to find the duchess.

  Weary, wondering how we’re going to explain why we’ve been researching magical beasts that devour magic, I rub my hands over my face.

  “Let’s take a quick look, Irving,” Benjamin says after the door swings shut. “Take a seat.”

  Irving argues with the elderly physician, but eventually, he sits in the spot Kent just vacated. Without a word, he strips off his tunic.

  I look away, but my traitorous eyes find their way back and slide over his tan, toned torso. Just as I had suspected, he’s built of lean muscle.

  Sensing me looking, for the first time in days, he flashes me a wicked grin.

  A riot of butterflies wakes in my stomach. Blushing, I bite my lip but don’t look away.

  Benjamin fusses over a gash in Irving’s side, but my eyes find a series of faint, odd scars that stretch across his arm, shoulder, and chest.

  The physician excuses himself, off to fetch something, and we’re as alone as we can be in a room of wounded men and maids.

  Standing, I cross to Irving. With a tentative touch, I run my finger down the scars and breathe, “What happened to you?”

  “Dragon.” When he turns his head, his mouth is close to my ear, and the word sends a tremor straight to my stomach.

  I set my hand on his chest, and his breath hitches softly.

  Trying to hide his reaction to my closeness, he murmurs, “The physician in Lauramore lied. He said it wouldn’t scar.” He raises an eyebrow. “But I’m glad it did. Makes me look rather dashing, don’t you think?”

  “You’re an idiot,” I whisper, smiling.

  But what I really want to tell him is that I love him.

  It’s a terrifying thought. When you love people, it hurts all the more when you lose them. How could I let myself fall? What would I have done if Irving had come back as wounded as Barowalt?

  What would I have done if he’d died?

  To care is to hurt.

  As if he can tell where my thoughts have drifted, Irving wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me toward him. He grazes his jaw just under my ear, making me shiver. “No changing your mind at this point, Princess. You’re stuck with me.”

  I’m about to climb onto his lap when Benjamin clears his throat from the doorway.

  I step back and smooth a wrinkle on my skirt.


  Irving, obviously delighted by my discomfort, grins at me over the physician’s shoulder.

  After several minutes, Benjamin has Irving’s side wrapped.

  “Audette?” Benjamin says as we’re about to leave. “What is this beast you spoke of?”

  Irving gives me a soft nod, and I take a deep breath and explain everything from the book, leaving out the part about the unicorns.

  “So it’s a magical species?”

  “Yes.”

  Benjamin purses his lips, thinking. He glances at the remaining men, all suffering silently before he turns back to me. “I need the assistance of a gimly.”

  Where am I to find a gimly? That particular magical species looks nearly identical to humans, and they very rarely choose to make their presence known.

  But they are renowned for their healing abilities.

  I’ve begun to shake my head, to tell him it’s impossible, but then I stop.

  If it’s a gimly we need to save Barowalt’s life, then a gimly I’ll find.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Finding a gimly is no trouble,” Grace says as she browses for more information on the ludrako in the castle’s library. “In fact, there’s a scholar in Constelita we could ask. I’d like to go back to their library now that we know exactly what beast it is we’re looking for.”

  Javid nods. “We’ll go now.”

  Like Irving, Javid wasn’t injured badly. He’s a little bruised, a little scratched up, and he walks with a slight limp, but other than that, he fared the attack well.

  “There’s a gimly scholar in Constelita?” I ask, my voice incredulous.

  Grace smiles. “Yes. According to her, there’s more of them living amongst us than we’ll ever know.”

  I shake my head, processing it. “Do you think she’ll come?”

  Javid and Grace exchange a look that seems promising, and then Grace nods.

  “Thank you,” I breathe, a small weight lifting off my shoulders.

  If we can find the gimly in time, then surely she will be able to save Barowalt.

  “I’ll help you prepare the horses,” Irving says to Javid, and the two men leave the library.

  I watch them walk through the doorway and then turn to Grace. “How is it, do you think, they came out of the attack so unscathed?”

  “Irving didn’t tell you what happened?” the duchess asks, surprised.

  “I haven’t asked yet. Every time he thinks of it, he becomes agitated.”

  She places an unwanted book back on the shelf and motions for me to join her on a padded bench near a window. Once again, it’s raining.

  I miss the sunshine we had when we first arrived. An occasional rain is fine, but to have it storm every afternoon and most mornings…it makes me melancholy.

  Grace runs her hand down her long braid. “When they arrived at the cave, your elite, heeding your warning, cautioned the group to tread carefully, but Aldus and Frederick were of a different mind. They wanted to storm the lair and take the wizard by surprise.”

  “They led the charge,” I say.

  She nods. “Kent was toward the front as well, but he somehow evaded the creature.”

  “And our men hung back, planning.”

  “But they couldn’t just do nothing when they heard the slaughter, so they joined them.”

  I shake my head, growing angry. If Edlund and Barowalt had simply listened to Irving…

  “According to Javid,” Grace says, lowering her voice. “The moment your brother and knights stepped into the cave, the creature sensed them. With single-minded determinedness, first it attacked their minds, sending them to their knees, and then it lunged on Barowalt. It gave the king’s remaining knights a chance to attack it. It didn’t even notice when they came at it with their swords. According to Javid, they couldn’t wound it.”

  Remembering the pain all too well, I shudder. “Only the men of the Order fell in pain?”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly, it all makes sense.

  I stand abruptly. “It was feeding off the unicorn magic that clings to us.” I grasp a lock of my hair. “And the magic it used marked us with its darkness.”

  That’s the thing I’m missing. This odd feeling I haven’t been able to place, this vague weakness that afflicts my muscles. I no longer carry their protective essence with me.

  “But what does that mean?” Grace asks.

  A cold feeling slithers through my stomach. “It means the Order can’t fight this creature.”

  Her brow wrinkles. “Perhaps. Unless the ludrako has already fed off the magic. In that case, when you meet it a second time…”

  Staring out the window, watching the clouds swirl in the countryside, hope blooms in my chest. He can’t hurt the four of us again. Our magic has already been lost.

  I look back suddenly. “Grace? If the creature set its wrath on Barowalt, how is he alive?”

  “Irving saved him.”

  “How?”

  Grace only shrugs, looking helpless.

  She’d just said nothing they did wounded the beast, but Irving injured it in Constelita. And apparently again in the cave.

  What is he doing differently?

  ***

  Grace and Javid left to find the gimly, and I pace the courtyard, waiting for Hallgrave’s return. If I’m right, and I think I am, the unicorns should have shied away from him just as they did me. If they did, then we’ll know their magic is lost to us.

  Then we’ll know we can attack the ludrako.

  Irving sits on a barrel, watching me with a ghost of a wry smile on his face.

  “What?” I finally demand, unable to bear his silence any longer.

  “You’re a vision in leather armor, with your hair braided back and your eyes fiery with determination.” He grins slowly, knowing he’s flustered me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you saved Barowalt’s life?” I ask abruptly.

  Irving’s eyebrows shoot up. “Who told you that?”

  “Grace.”

  Stretching, acting nonchalant, he crosses his arms and slouches against the wall. “It was a lucky shot.”

  “Why is it that the one time you have no reason to play humble, you—wait. You shot it again? Like the night in the streets?”

  He gives me an odd look. “Yes.”

  “You shot it with an arrow?”

  The light shines through the trees, highlighting his hair, making him look especially heroic and noble until he ruins the image by smirking. “That’s typically what you shoot something with.”

  “And no one else tried to shoot it?”

  He looks confused, but that irritating smile still plays on his lips. “Several people attempted it. Apparently I had the lucky shot.”

  I shake my head. “No, that’s not it.”

  Rising, he strides to me, cocky now. “Are you saying you’re finally willing to admit my superior archery skills? I knew you would eventually.”

  I raise a brow. “That’s certainly not what I’m saying.”

  He rubs his jaw against my shoulder, distracting me. “You’re sending me mixed signals, darling.”

  “Stop that,” I say, pushing him back. “I can’t think.”

  There something different about Irving’s arrows. Something he’d said…

  Practically purring, he steps toward me again, pushing me backward until I’m against the large, gnarled trunk of a tree. “I like it when you don’t think.”

  Laughing, I try to press against his chest, but he won’t budge. My heart picks up its pace, and for the millionth time, I wonder why I didn’t first marry him in Primewood when I had the chance.

  “You smell good,” he murmurs, his lips brushing against the crook of my neck. “You’re dressed like a goddess warrior, ready to take on a mythical creature of old, and yet you took the time to dab perfume oils behind your ears. I rather like that.”

  I tingle where his lips trail, and I’m about to close my eyes and give in when that thing that was
floating just out of my reach suddenly pops into my head. “Drachite.”

  Startled, Irving backs up only enough to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry?”

  “Your arrowheads—you told my knights they were crafted from the new alloy King Rigel of Errinton created—the same as the armor you were speaking of.”

  Understanding dawns on Irving’s face, and he takes a swift step back, serious now. “They are.”

  “And you’re the only one who’s been able to inflict harm on the beast.”

  He raises an eyebrow, pretending arrogance. “I am.”

  “How many arrows do you have left?” I demand.

  Irving wrinkles his brow, thinking. “Of my drachite arrows? Two…maybe three.”

  It’s not enough.

  “What about your armor? Could we smelt it? Craft a few swords?”

  He looks like he’s swallowed a toad. “You want me to smelt down my priceless, rare, very coveted set of drachite armor to make swords?”

  “That’s right.”

  Gritting his teeth, yet somehow smiling, he sucks in a slow breath. Finally, he closes the distance between us again. Against my ear, he says, “You’re very lucky I like you.”

  ***

  We find Rogert in the practice yard, sparring. I scan the men for Keven. The two knights are rarely apart.

  As if sensing Irving and me, a knight looks over, and our eyes meet.

  I suck in a startled breath. My golden knight, my lion, has cut his hair. It’s now so short, it doesn’t even brush his ears. And it’s as dark as teak.

  After Keven excuses himself from the crowd, he kneels before me. “Your Highness.” He pauses, his face tortured. “I’m so sorry for what happened to Barowalt. I should—”

  “Stop.” I motion for him to rise. “I was the creature’s victim as well, don’t you remember? I know there was no fighting it in that moment.”

  He nods, but his jaw stays tight. Then he turns his attention to Irving. “Word has it you saved him. You saved all of us.”

  Irving wears a cautious, friendly smile. “Don’t mention it.”

  Slowly, as if it almost pains him, Keven extends his hand.

  Next to me, Irving hesitates, but then he takes it. As they shake, their smiles grow. Their new camaraderie makes my heart happy.